It’s been a while. Once you get out of the habit of blogging, it’s awfully hard to get back into it. I can’t count the times I’ve formulated a post in my head and just never made the time to sit down and type it out. I’m hoping to get back into more of a normal blogging routine, but only time will tell.
As you can see, little miss is getting to be awfully grown up. I think the last time I posted she wasn’t walking or talking. And now she is doing both…a lot. Zoe is now almost 21 months old and is just so much fun. She is spunky and funny and sweet and affectionate and a little bit shy (but a huge ham once she gets comfortable with you). She loves her friends (especially Ari – or Agen as she calls him) and loves to dance, tickle and be tickled, play peekabo, play in the water, do mommy’s hair, love on her babies, color and read. I absolutely love seeing her learn to say new things and explore her world and figure out how things work. Babies are cute and cuddly and all, and I’m sure someday I’ll long for those itty bitty days, but right now we’re having a blast with our little toddler.
How I found the two of them getting ready for church on Sunday morning. Daddy’s interpretation of baby-wearing?
Little Miss is certainly developing quite the personality. Keep in mind that this is the baby that one of the nannies in the care center told us was a “silent baby”. I’m amazed at how much language (verbal or non-verbal) she can comprehend and respond to these days. A few funny things:
When she’s riding on Matt’s shoulders she puts her hands on his cheeks, peaks around to see his face, and whispers “hi” in his ear.
Yesterday we were reading “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” and when we got to the “no more monkeys…” part she started wagging her finger. I thought maybe I was just imagining it and had no idea where she would have picked this up but it turns out her babysitter does this when she reads this book to her. Unfortunately she has now begun to use the finger wagging every time she hears the word no, which makes it very difficult to tell her no and keep a straight face.
There’s been a lot of nose-blowing on my part around here lately given that I am on day 17 of a sinus infection and Z started imitating me on about day 12. When she sees me blow my nose (or just wants to make me laugh) she picks up a towel/blanket/burp cloth/whatever she can find, scrunches up her nose and blows into it.
She’s started using a fake laugh to try to make us laugh or when she sees us laughing. It’s about three parts adorable and one part totally mischievous.
She’s trying so hard to make friends with Dolly. Occasionally Dolly will humor her for a few minutes and Zoe gets so so excited she flaps her arms and dances around. She’s also realized that Dolly wants her food so as she’s eating in her high chair she’ll drop a bite on the floor every other bite or so and call Dolly to come get it. Unfortunately Dolly tends to stay clear of the high chair because she’s terrified (with good reason) of being hit on the head by a flying sippy cup.
She’s started “singing”. She’s either trying to sing the Elmo’s World song (which I taught her) or Getting Jiggy With It (which daddy taught her). Either way, when you ask her to sing she uses the sweetest little voice and sings “na na na na”. So, so sweet.
Her daddy taught her how to do the Beyonce single ladies dance (just the “put a ring on it” part – not the booty shaking) and she now does it any time she hears the song. Ridiculous, I know.
As you may have noticed, I took a rather forced but much needed break from blogging for the last couple months. No, I’m not giving up blogging. It’s just that I’ve had the somewhat perfect storm at work that found me at the office more than I really like to admit or care to repeat. And when you’re a working mom, that means that you squeeze quality time with the little one (and the sweet, patient, understanding, long-suffering husband) out of every spare minute that you have. Thankfully the “storm” seems to be over and life is returning to normal (if by normal you mean gutting and remodeling a house that we just bought and getting ready to pack, move and sell our current home). Unfortunately my first few days of normal are accompanied by a nasty cold courtesy of the beating my immune system took over the last couple weeks. I can just hear my mom’s voice telling me that I must take better care of myself. I totally agree.
So, what have we been up to? Everybody asks me if Zoe enjoyed her first Christmas but really she was pretty indifferent to it all. She was showered with gifts from her loving grandparents and aunts and uncles and quite enjoyed playing with all the tissue paper and her cousin Carter and visiting my family.
Shortly after Christmas (the 29th) we celebrated her first birthday. It sounds so cliche but I just can’t believe how fast she is growing up. She was such a baby baby - about like a 3-4 month old at 6 months when we brought her home and all the sudden she’s practically a toddler. Her birthday was definitely a time to celebrate, but it was also a pretty difficult and emotional time for me. My heart hurts every time I think of her birth family in Ethiopia (and I think of them pretty much every day) but in the days and weeks leading up to her birthday I just felt such an intense grief for the woman that gave birth to this precious tiny baby girl and then made the most difficult decision imaginable. We celebrated the incredible joy that this little girl has brought to our lives and how blessed we feel to be her parents but there were more than a few tears shed as I reflected on all these things.
And then, the long-awaited Ari made his appearance here in the U.S. accompanied by his new parents, our dear friends Roger and Abby. We got to greet them at the airport and Matt took some photos of their first moments at the airport. Zoe and Ari have already had a few play dates and she is quite fond of him. How could she not be?! Just look at how beautiful he is!
These days, Zoe is changing every single day. I’ll warn you in advance that I’m probably going to blabber on and on about all of the cute and exciting things she’s doing – most of which practically every child on the planet does – but I just can’t help myself. So…here’s a bit of what she’s been up to.
She’s not quite walking yet but is getting very close. She’s all over the place and can stand on her own for quite a long time. Yesterday I saw her stand up from a sitting position without holding on to anything.
She has four teeth now. Her top two starting coming in a couple weeks ago and are about half way in. She’s got this really cute gap between them.Can’t wait to see what that smile looks like once they’re all the way in.
In the past couple months we have been through a pretty shy phase where she didn’t want anything to do with almost anybody but Matt & I. In the last couple of weeks though we have entered a rather outgoing, charming, ham-it-up phase. Last week we were eating at a restaurant and she was waving and saying “hi” and blowing kisses to everyone that walked in the door.
She makes the most expressive faces – she does a lot of semi-winking, raising her eyebrows, puckering her lips and scrunching up her nose. And if you laugh at her, well, she’ll do it another 25 times. She imitates almost anything that we do (scary, I know).
She gives very sweet but super slobbery kisses. She knows how to pucker and does it all the time to make us laugh but for some reason when she actually goes in for a kiss she opens her mouth really wide, sticks out her tongue and licks your face. Gross, but cute.
She plays with purpose now. I don’t know if that makes sense or not, but for the first time it’s like she’s actually thinking about what she’s doing. She stacks things, she sorts things into different piles, she chooses specific toys for specific reasons (like because she wants to dance to the music that it makes), and she turns her stacking toy upside down to get everything off and then puts them all back on. It’s so exciting to see that little brain work.
Her favorite activity right now is to sit down with her basket of books. She will pull them out one by one, flip through the pages and then toss them aside. I think she could entertain herself with this for an hour. Hopefully this means she’s going to be really smart. She doesn’t have as much patience for being read to right now. She wants to flip the pages herself too fast to allow for reading all the words on the page.
She has the funniest dance moves. Words don’t do it justice. We’ll just have to get some video some time soon.
She will eat absolutely anything. Brussell sprouts, lima beans – it doesn’t matter. Sometimes we wonder if she actually has working taste buds because she is the most indiscriminate eater I’ve ever met. (We know she does because there are certain things she likes more than others – like green peas, for example.)
She’s really picked up the sign language. She watches her sign language DVD every day and knows almost every word on it. It’s so cool to be able to communicate with her like this. She can tell us when she wants to eat, when she wants milk, and when she wants more. She also knows how to sign car, fish (complete with the most adorable fish face you’ve ever seen) dog, cat, sleep, flower, baby, airplane and shoes but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of practical application for most of those words yet. For some reason she refuses to sign mommy and daddy.
Her relationship with Dolly seems to be improving. We’re pretty sure that Dolly was actually her first word. Zoe absolutely loves the dog and spends much of her time pointing at her, saying her name, and doing the sign for dog. Occasionally Dolly will sit and let her pet her and it absolutely thrills Zoe. Most of the time though, Zoe talks to and waves at Dolly through the back door. It’s her favorite spot in our house.
She is still jabbering on and on all the time, but only has a few words that we can actually understand. Dog, hi, and daddy are about it. Occasionally she’ll utter something that sounds like mama.
At her one-year doctor appointment she was in the 90th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height. Hard to believe she was barely on the charts just 7 months ago. We have heard that the people from the Kembata region of Ethiopia (where Z is from) tend to be bigger so I’m thinking it’s just in her genes. She was so chubby (in the cutest way) right before she really started crawling but now that she’s on the move I can tell she’s already starting to thin out a bit.
Sorry for the length of this. A lot of milestones to cover.
“I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ, the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11
It’s a lovely white Christmas here in the Midwest. And we’re all cozy at home as a little family of three (or four if you count Dolly, which we do). I’m trying to look on the bright side and focus on counting all of our many, many blessings because we are actually stranded at home. Yes, I know it could be much worse – we could be stranded somewhere out there. But I’m feeling a little blue because we weren’t able to get “home” to my family today for Zoe’s first Christmas.
Matt was sweet enough to make me French toast wth homemade blueberry syrup for breakfast this morning. And tonight we’re going to indulge ourselves in a meal straight out of the pages of one of my Christmas presents – The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Nothing cheers a girl up like a day full of meals laden with animal fat and sugar, right? Things are looking good for us to head south tomorrow and we will enjoy an abbreviated weekend celebration of Christmas with my family.
I’ll leave you with a Merry Christmas wish from sweet baby Z…who is only a “baby” for another four days. She is finally mobile and quite independent and hilarious. I’ll have to share some of my favorite things about our baby girl at this age in her big first birthday post sometime next week.
I always wondered why many bloggers seemed to disappear from the scene after they brought their children home. And now I know. I would love to be one of those moms that has it together enough to blog every day (or even every week), but it seems like the stuff of my real life just doesn’t leave a lot of time for that right now. So, the best I can do for now is post a quick picture of that sweet little girl every once in a while. I’d really love to be insightful and witty and thoughtful. Maybe next year.
I am, however, going to interrupt this long period of blog silence to post a few Christmas related things that I have stumbled across and really like. Since we’ve returned from Ethiopia we’ve been rethinking the way we do a lot of things. And of course, that includes Christmas. I want Christmas to mean something different for our family and for Zoe than what it seems to have become in America these days. The past couple years we’ve scaled our gift giving way back and diverted the money we would have spent on each other to organizations that change people’s lives. And it’s so much fun! Now, how you get small children to see the fun in that when all their friends are getting mini-Hummers for Christmas, I’m not sure. A challenge for another year, I suppose.
So, I thought I’d share some stuff that I’ve come across in the last few weeks that make my list of thought-provoking, inspirational Christmas stuff.
There’s this video from the Advent Conspiracy – a powerful message again this year:
“There’s a little girl from Ethiopia who goes everywhere with me. She just stands there expressionless, her skin ashen, her hair falling out, her feet missing toe nails, her tongue swollen, her two fingers pointing into her mouth in a silent plea for food.
When I want. When I say “I need,” “I’m poor” or “I’m starving.” When I’m tempted to buy something for someone this Christmas who already has everything. She stands there. She always stands there.
She represents the almost 30,000 kids under the age of five who will die today from poverty.”
Or this post, also from Shaun Groves which is pretty spot on, in my opinion. An excerpt…
“There was a time in American history when Christians could be counted on to get angry about the right stuff – the stuff that seems to have made Jesus angry. In the 1920s, for instance, when Saint Nick became the patron saint of American consumerism, most Christians in this country opposed the holiday because of its inextricable connection to materialism and self-indulgence.
Fast forward to 2005. TheAmerican Family Association spearheaded a boycott of Target because the retailer wished shoppers a “Happy Holiday” instead of a “Merry Christmas.” The AFA wanted to make sure all our self-indulgence and materialism was being carried out in Jesus’ name.”
So what is making our new style Christmas list this year?
The World Vision Gift Catalog which is full of cool things you can give to someone with real needs in honor of someone that has everything they need. Chickens, goats, wells, school supplies, etc.
The Water for Christmas campaign. One in eight people on the planet don’t have access to clean water. But $20 provides clean water to 1 person for 20 years. When I hear numbers like that it seems like it should be an easy problem to solve, yet it is so big.
I know it’s been a while since I posted any Zoe pictures, so just to prove that she’s still kinda cute I’ll leave you with one. Baby girl is going to be one in 2 weeks!
Our sweet girl is now a big 10-month old! She’s at such a fun age – funny, feisty, curious, chubby, wiggly, and snuggly. I know that I’ve said this in every single monthly update, but we cannot believe how well she is doing. It’s hard to believe that we’ve only been a family for four months now, because it’s really difficult to recall what life without her felt like.
And since this blog is essentially ZL’s baby book, I must document a few things about her 9th month of life.
She is *finally* sleeping through the night. Before we were parents I had no idea that there were so many philosophies and opinions out there on sleep – and so many very, very strong opinions at that. I’m not looking to start any kind of debate about parenting styles and sleep here (or be judged for that matter) but I will tell you what worked for us. Let me just say that we went through several weeks where not a single one of us was getting any quality sleep. And that is a miserable way to live. We really thought we would be strict no-cry parents. And then we found ourselves with a baby that couldn’t sleep. So we tried a few of the no-cry approaches and nothing worked. Some nights we were getting up every hour all. night. long. Some nights we would be up for 2 or 3 hours in the middle of the night. And then after doing a lot of research we decided that perhaps a little crying was in order and we tried a new approach (Dr. Ferber, to be precise) that involved letting her cry for a few minutes at a time and then going in to comforting her. And after 1 night of this (that involved less than an hour of crying) she’s slept completely through the night ever since. Amazing. Maybe not for everyone, but it definitely worked for us. And I would say there has been no damage done to sweet ZL and we’re all (including her) in a better place now that we’re sleeping.
She has two teeth! Perhaps a couple more on the way, but her smile is officially toothy these days.
She’s not yet crawling or pulling up but she has still managed to find ways to be mobile. We’ve been saying for weeks now that she’s about to start crawling because she gets in the position and rocks, but nothing yet. She mostly gets all set to crawl and then decides that it’s not worth the effort, flops on to her back, and rolls across the room. We’ve gotten just a glimpse of what life will be like once she’s a threat to anything in her path and let me just say that I think it’s going to rock our world.
She loves to entertain people. If she does something and it makes you laugh you can bet that she’s going to do it again and again and again. Right now, her favorite thing to do is make this totally adorable face where she scrunches up her nose (I am yet to capture it in a picture) and does this fake laugh/cough thing. It never gets old. I think it confuses people that don’t know what she’s doing because it looks like she’s in some type of pain or maybe that her nose itches, but Matt and I have realized that we scrunch our noses up at her all the time and she’s just following suit. And because it makes us laugh every time she does it over and over and over.
She just keeps getting louder. She’s not yet at a point where you can reason with her to be quiet or tell her no, so it’s always a bit risky to go anywhere her screeching might bother other people. But of course, we still think it’s funny. And when she gets really excited, she adds some bouncing up and down and arm-flapping to her screaming for effect. Matt took her to her first basketball game this week and apparently she danced and squealed (one could argue it’s more like screaming) in his lap through the entire game. And she made the “fan can” on the jumbo-tron – because she’s so dang cute . She’s still jabbering like crazy and we’ve really noticed some changes in her ”talking” lately. It’s starting to sound a lot more like she’s actually trying to express herself than just blabbering.
We’re starting to work on sign language because she is definitely imitating us these days and seems to understand when you ask her to do certain things – like peekaboo or “How big is Zoe”? It’s hard for us to not just keep asking her to do trick after trick (clap your hands, wave bye-bye, raise the roof (shameful-I know-but so cute)) because it’s so very cool and exciting to see that she understands what we’re asking her to do.
She’s still the happiest baby I know. I don’t know how much you can tell about personality when kids are this age, but she’s so very laid back, easy going, and up for about anything. And this sounds kind of cheesy when you’re talking about a baby, but she just seems to love life. The smallest things just make her giddy. And she doesn’t get upset about much – unless she can see her bottle and you waste time giving it to her or she has an ear infection and her parents are too dumb to realize it.
Every day, she seems less like a baby and more like a little girl. It’s bittersweet because I so look forward to every new thing that she’s going to do and it’s just amazing to watch her grow and develop, but at the same time it’s just going by so fast. When I look at pictures of that tiny baby we met in Ethiopia it hardly seems like the same girl. I guess that could be because she’s gained 8 (yes – 8!!) pounds in the last four months. From 3rd percentile to 50th percentile (13 lbs to 21 lbs) in no time.
She doesn’t have as much patience for being read to right now. She wants to flip the pages herself too fast to allow for reading all the words on the page.
